Egypt erupts in violence again as opposition claim Islamists stole their revolution

A group of Egyptian protesters chant during a demonstration in Tahrir Square on January 25, in Cairo, Egypt.

Photograph by: egypt Ed Giles/Getty Images
, Postmedia News

CAIRO – Screaming that their revolution had been stolen from them and that nothing had changed, tens of thousands of Egyptian liberals marked the anniversary of the revolt that they led two years ago by staging huge street protests Friday against the fledgling Islamist government of President Mohammed Morsi.

In scenes reminiscent of the heady, uncertain days at the start of the uprising in January 2011 when hopes of toppling Hosni Mubarak’s military regime soared and everything seemed possible, protesters clashed repeatedly with police and sometimes with each other in several major cities including Cairo, where the area around Tahrir Square was enveloped in a shroud of tear gas for hours late Friday.

Seven demonstrators had been killed in Suez, according to the BBC. Scores of others were injured and in the Egyptian capital gangs of roving, stone-throwing teenagers spent hours spoiling for trouble.

With the country so deeply divided, there might have been even more trouble had Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood not ordered its supporters to stay at home, lest they ended up in a deadly riot with the secularists, as happened one night outside the presidential palace in December.

“Bread, freedom and social justice. That is what we wanted then and that is what we want now,” Bassel Adel said, repeating a popular mantra first heard at rallies two years ago. “We are unhappy because we did not get anything we wanted. Morsi has no interest in democracy or political freedom. He has produced a constitution without consulting the people.”

Adel, who sits in the current parliament for the opposition Dustour Party, threatened that if Morsi did not meet their demands, his party and others would band together to boycott elections that have been pushed back from this month until April.

That sentiment was what brought Mohammad Ahmed, who is unemployed, to Tahrir Square with his cousin and fiancee, Dina Mahmoud, who teaches art at a school.

“We begin again because no other course of action is open to us,” Ahmed said. “Life is worse for us in every way today. We don’t trust the police. Most of us have serious economic problems and no chance to solve them.”

One of the many reasons the Egyptian revolution is incomplete is because the country remains deeply divided with no hint that either side wishes to compromise.

Many of Mubarak’s associates continue to lead lives of privilege similar to what they enjoyed under the old regime. The police remain an erratic force that commands little respect when it does show up. In many ways the courts and the bureaucracy behave as if they were the official opposition and not servants of the government and the people.

For its part, Morsi’s government, has shown little aptitude for running a government, tackling the economy or reforming the security services. Morsi is hemmed in by another problem. His supporters, and those who back his far more extreme partners, the Salafis, are clamouring for Islamization while the opposition and western governments, including the U.S., whose loans keep Egypt afloat, are concerned about the lack of political freedom and the rights of women and minorities.

Mostly there is a sense of paralysis. The secular and Islamist visions fight for supremacy. Nobody talks of compromise. The cards remain heavily stacked in the Brotherhood’s favour. They and their allies win about 70 per cent of the vote every time there is an election or referendum and they are likely to do so again in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The secularists and the country’s large Coptic Christian minority have had trouble accepting that practising democracy includes accepting defeat at the ballot box. The Islamists have also had trouble acknowledging that others have rights, too, and that dramatic social change cannot be imposed when millions of their compatriots are strongly opposed.

The endless protests and uncertainties have left many in Tahrir Square bewildered and despairing. But Friday’s turnout was by the far largest in many months.

“What is the opposition, I’m not even sure any more. I am not a member of a party but I am opposed to everything that is going on today,” said Rana Safey, a 26-year-old medical doctor who came to Tahrir Square with a group known as the Anti-Harassment Movement, which tries to prevent women from being assaulted as such gatherings.

“We have been at this so long that this is not the end or the beginning of anything. I only hope that maybe in 10 years we will reach a state when people realize that Islamists are not the solution.”

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